The main dining room at the Detroit Athletic Club is one of the attractions at the club. / Detroit Athletic Club

The Detroit Athletic Club on Madison in downtown Detroit is seen on Friday May 3, 2013. Ryan Garza / Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press

Fans pack the Detroit Athletic Club's outdoor pavilion duing the Detroit Tigers' playoff run in the fall of 2012. Manager Ted Gillary said membership is now at about 3,600. / Detroit Athletic Club

More

ADVERTISEMENT

When Paul Glomski and his partners started their technology firm Detroit Labs downtown in 2011, they noticed many clients suggested business lunches at the venerable Detroit Athletic Club.

Glomski liked the DAC so much he applied for membership. So have several other downtown business newcomers — making the DAC one of the many veteran downtown attractions experiencing a rush of new interest as Quicken Loans, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and other employers transferred workforces in the past two years.

“I am in for everything downtown,” Glomski said, “and the DAC is one of many wonderful things that the city has to offer.”

As of late April, an influx of 50 people were applying either for new membership or reinstatement. DAC Executive Manager Ted Gillary said membership is now at about 3,600, still down from around 3,800 before the start of the Great Recession but growing lately at an increasing clip.

“There’s a real growth,” he said. “Obviously downtown development is certainly a bright spot, and the DAC is very much a part of the infrastructure and the activity downtown.”

The increase in applications from downtown business newcomers not only restores some of the lost membership but it also validates the club’s long-term strategy to be among the most elegant private clubs in the U.S., investing at least $45 million in its facilities over the past 20 years.

The improvements also have helped maintain its position as one of Detroit’s key business forums. Everything from local Rotary meetings to the regular “Pancakes & Politics” breakfasts attended by hundreds of civic and business leaders takes place at the DAC. When the Detroit Media Partnership unveiled its plans in late 2008 for three-day home delivery, it made the announcement at the club.

Retail consultant Jim Bieri, a 36-year DAC member and former club secretary, said the club has succeeded in creating “a unique membership of regular guys and successful women, a great staff, at a relatively bargain price.”

The DAC responded to hard times by making internal improvements and offering family style events to keep its members coming in. The club offers casual and fine dining, first-rate athletic facilities, and a variety of meeting rooms catering to members and outsiders.

(Page 2 of 2)

First opened in 1915 with a landmark building designed by architect Albert Kahn, the DAC celebrates its 100th anniversary in a couple of years.

Bieri added that the DAC staff and members try to take an active part in the revitalization of downtown.

“We have an active membership committee, and when you see new companies come to downtown they reach out to them … If you’ve moved in from someplace else, you’re just taken by the history and elegance of the (DAC) and yet the warmness at the same time.”

For proposed new members like Glomski, the DAC offers a chance to embrace the changes happening in the central business district.

“There’s a lot happening downtown, and it gives people a chance to get in on the ground floor of something that’s rising fast,” he said of increased downtown business activity.

Started in May 2011, Detroit Labs has grown from four founders to 30 people today, and it expects to double in size this year alone, Glomski said. It occupies space at the M@dison, the entrepreneurial tech hub in downtown Detroit created by Quicken Loans founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert that is a short walk from the DAC.